


Sweet Rides

by icaruslaughed



Series: Suptober20 [9]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dean POV, Drabble, The Impala (Supernatural), Young!Dean, Young!Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:01:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26945617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icaruslaughed/pseuds/icaruslaughed
Summary: day 10 of suptober; a sort of drabble from back when it was just two little kids on the road with their dad
Series: Suptober20 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1955047
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Sweet Rides

An older brother looks out the window of his dad’s car, head resting on a sweatshirt serving as a makeshift pillow. His younger brother managed to sprawl himself across the backseat, breathing in that way he does when he sleeps: three small breaths in and one long sigh on the way out. Dean finds it endearing and almost comforting; he falls asleep every night in a new motel to that sound, the sound that lets him know his little brother is alive and okay and safe from whatever monster they happen to be chasing after.

Sammy doesn’t know that, of course. The poor kid doesn’t know a lot of things. Dean knows there’s a reason for that. By now he’s learned a few constants in what his father does:

_ 1) No one ever really says thank you when you save them _

2) Ignorance is not just bliss, but safety from the things that go bump in the night

3) (Most importantly) Sammy needs to be protected at all costs

To keep people safe, you don’t tell them what you know, because then they start asking questions. You can’t afford to answer those questions because then they go looking for more answers, ones no normal person should ever know. That gets them into trouble. Sam needs to be kept out of trouble. He never even had to be told that much; it’s always just been instinct to do what’s best for his kid brother, to let him be normal. As normal as a kid who moves from town to town once a week can be, anyways. So when it comes time for his dad to explain this week’s case, he does it quietly. Sam sleeps in the backseat as if nothing’s wrong at all.

His father sits next to him, holding in one hand a cup of black coffee from the gas station they stopped at half an hour ago and the steering wheel in the other. He’ll take a sip occasionally, his eyes somehow never leaving the road. Sometimes he looks over at Dean, who pretends not to see him, and smiles softly, almost guiltily. Even at ten years old, Dean sees it—the guilt— and worst of all, he thinks he understands why it’s there. 

He feels the same guilt for the death of Mary Winchester. But he also sees guilt for what he’s been through. For the life he’s been forced to live. That Sammy’s been forced to live. He knows it’s somewhat misplaced; he knows there’s nothing he—or anyone—can do about what happened six years ago.

But he also knows he’s too young to dwell on such matters, so he simply buries his chin in the folds of his hand-me-down sweatshirt and falls asleep watching the beautiful hues of sunset smudged across the sky fade to inky black speckled with the light of hundreds on millions of stars.


End file.
